About

First made in 2006, this naturally rinded soft cheese is made with pasteurised milk. It is blue veined and is sold at 3-5 weeks of age. It has a 8 week shelf life. Being hand-made, the sizes have a minimum weight of 180g but are approximately 210g, some slightly larger some slightly smaller. When the cheese is sold at 3-4 weeks it has a relatively mild blue flavour but expect the IOW Blue to accelerate quickly so that by the time it is at the end of its Best Before date, the flavour will be a lot more spikier than when it was young.

Being naturally rinded, it is covered in green, blue, grey and white moulds. These give the cheese bags of character and the variety of surface moulds that grow on the rind will make it stand out on any cheeseboard.

The cheese has been a multiple medal winner at the World, British and International Cheese Awards, most notably winning Best English Cheese at The World Cheese Awards and Best Vegetarian Cheese at the 2019 Artisan Cheese Awards in Melton Mowbray

Aftercare

Refrigerate your Isle of Wight Blue after purchase (6 degrees if possible) and remove from the fridge an hour before eating to allow the cheese to reach room temperature. Only remove from the fridge what you think you will eat in one go, and put the remainder straight back in the fridge.